TBH it has not helped that I have quit smoking recently and have been a right irritable bastard and over critical of just about everything. Gonna be interesting watching Leone without a smoke, especially FAFDM just prior dream segment and GBU aftera meal there's nothing like a good chewing gum doesn't sit right.

My father knows a man who died today at 58 years old; he had cancer of the throat and lungs, and in his final 2 months, he told everyone that cigarettes killed him.

Quitting smoking is a damn good thing, no matter what it takes and what you go through. Physical addictions are gone after 3 days, at that point, it's all mental.

Keep at it

Logged

There are three types of people in the world, my friend: those who can add, and those who can't.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - 7.5/10The first hour or so is brilliant. It unrelentingly and perfectly mocks my most hated sub-genre to a tee: the musical biopic. Every frame, line of dialogue, and character attacks the tired cliches of trite like Walk the Line, Ray, Beyond the Sea, etc.

The second half of the movie however tends to drag on, often recycling and reusing the same jokes and gags from the first half. I did realize afterwards that I watched the 120 minute extended cut though, and that there is a 96 minutes theatrical version. If I had watched the theatrical, I'm assuming that my rating would be closer to an 8.5 or so. It's not often I'm this impressed with a comedy.

Gangster Squad (2013) - 7/10. An unofficial team of LAPD members bring maximum heat to bear on the operations of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn and an amazing prosthetic nose). "Inspired by True Events" and set in 1949, the film has a color palette that matches postcards of the period (if you doubt it all you have to do is wait for the end credits--done as postcards--to do a comparison). It also has CGI that makes an LA that no longer exists live again. It even has men who smoke, know how to work lighters, and wear hats. And it has a squad of stereotypes--the hard-charging, no-nonsense leader (Josh Brolin), the goofy sidekick (Ryan Gosling), the Black Guy, the Latino, the Old Guy, the nerdy electronics expert. Nonetheless, these characters are re-invested with traits that make them worth caring about. Emma Stone is in the picture as Gosling's love interest, and her character is used in a way that is actually important to the story. (Special acknowlegement needs to go to Mireille Enos as Brolin's long-suffering wife: both performance and role are exceptional). Not all the plot tracks--I'm guessing there were some scenes cut and that there's an extended-version of the film in our future--but things move along so quickly there's almost no time for any head scratching. Many of the plot turns are predictable--but again, old skins have been filled with new wine, and it's all to the good. And when the terms of the final confrontation were announced it was all I could do to keep myself from doing a fist pump. Some of the action was hard to follow (which accounts for my giving the film a reduced score) but there is no dint of excitement. Comparisons will no doubt be made with The Untouchables--for my part, I think GS is the better film--but the movie I was most frequently reminded of was Dick Tracy (I just got the blu-ray a couple weeks back, so that may account for it). The one really refreshing aspect of the film is its lack of irony. The film is about tough men with a tough job who don't have the luxury to second-guess themselves. And the filmmakers respect what the characters do--the men are presented as true heroes, men who returned victoriously from WW2 and found themselves with an even more difficult war to fight. They fought and they won, with honor. Damn straight.

Logged

That's what you get, Drink, for not appreciating the genius of When You Read This Letter.

I thought it was a lot of fun. The action is kind of cartoony, but the characters are well drawn. Some seem to think you can't have lifelike characters in an over-the-top action film, but I say, What else is cinema for?

Logged

That's what you get, Drink, for not appreciating the genius of When You Read This Letter.

Les Miserables (2012) - 5/10 - There are moments in Tom Hooper's bloated musical monstrosity that achieve genuine pathos. There's Anne Hathaway, truly heartbreaking for the 15 minutes she's onscreen. There's Sacha Baron Cohen and Helen Bonham Carter's hilarious doubles-act as second-tier villains. There are no-name supporting players like Samantha Barks and Aaron Tveit who steal their scenes. And there are show-stopping songs like I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House and One Day More.

Too bad these highlights are ensconced in interminable pomposity. The movie never really sells us on its lead characters: Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert, in this telling, are thoroughly flat, while young lovers Marius and Cosette are invested with soaring, tragic pathos they haven't earned. This nicely sums up the operatic approach, whose constant singing invests the most incidental banalities with false grandeur. Nor do the lead performances help: Hugh Jackman sings beautifully but can't do much with a dull character; Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried mopey dopes; while Russell Crowe is genuinely, utterly, inexplicably awful.

But Hooper's direction is the primary culprit: all endless close-ups, no matter how dramatic or colorful the song, complete with his trademark egregious angling and baroque framing. In John Adams and The King's Speech it's merely an irritating quirk; here it's a deal breaker. Isn't one of the pleasures of a musical spectacle? Why all the rich costumes and sets if we're staring endlessly at Russell Crowe's atonal maw? Would it kill Hooper to hire a choreographer? On the other hand, his anemic staging of the student revolt indicates this may not be a tragedy.

Silver Linings Playbook - 7.5/10Witty, charming, and original first act brought together by some pretty solid lead and supporting performances from the surprisingly good Cooper, Lawrence, and De Niro. At times, it seeps into the realm of generic Rom-Com, but the otherwise excellent dialogue makes up for this. A few blatantly forced plot devices weigh it down though, and the second half becomes less interesting character-wise in a heavily character based movie.

Still, surprisingly good - and probably my favorite of the Best Pic nominees that I've seen.

Silver Linings Playbook - 7.5/10Witty, charming, and original first act brought together by some pretty solid lead and supporting performances from the surprisingly good Cooper, Lawrence, and De Niro. At times, it seeps into the realm of generic Rom-Com, but the otherwise excellent dialogue makes up for this. A few blatantly forced plot devices weigh it down though, and the second half becomes less interesting character-wise in a heavily character based movie.

Still, surprisingly good - and probably my favorite of the Best Pic nominees that I've seen.

Silver Linings Playbook - 9/10 - An excellent tonic after the pompous Les Mis, this movie earns its last act sentimentality. True, in structure it's a typical romantic comedy, the main twist being Bradley Cooper's character is bipolar. But David O. Russell handles the material with real warmth and feeling, taking care to believably build his character relationships so the inevitable payoff works. The cast is flawless: Cooper sheds his Hangover persona with a powerfully understated turn, and Jennifer Lawrence is extraordinary. Nice to see Robert DeNiro giving a good performance in a good movie again. Even Chris Tucker isn't punchable. A wonderful movie.